Fourteenth child of a Methodist minister who died at 28 in the first year of the 20th century and left behind dozens of brilliant poems and The Red Badge of Courage, he thought art need be nothing more than connective tissue, one person to another.

There was a man with tongue of wood
Who essayed to sing,
And in truth it was lamentable.
But there was one who heard
The clip-clapper of this tongue of wood
And knew what the man
Wished to sing,
And with that the singer was content.

He could be right; he naturally enough expressed his view better, but cheery tones bring out the brute in me.